Tony,You raise a good point. The total saving achieved by the contract change was £3.34 million, see Section 7 of this report:http://www.ealing.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/378/item_14-environmental_services_contract_reviewThe total spend on waste, cleaning and grounds maintenance previously was just over £20 million so this saving was in the order of 16%. In addition to this there is a £1.5 million associated with the reduction and charging for the garden waste service. The document also says:"The overall contract savings have been driven by increased tender competitiveness, sophistication in the waste contracts market, the rising trend in rates obtained for recycled materials, the operating efficiencies gained by integrating Grounds Maintenance into the Waste and Street Cleaning contract, and improved working methods."In other words there is not meant to be any reduction in service (beyond the garden waste). When we discussed tihs at the special council meeting called by the Tories the Labour councillors did try to blame the service failure on the cuts. Their own document undermines this argument. Essentially what we have here is a good old fashioned cock up; an over-ambitious contractor, lack of oversight by officers and the administration. The original contract was let in comparatively good times, it had been added to when the Tories were in power (we were keen to make improvements in this area and had little choice but to add to the existing contract) and new areas such as grounds maintenance were added into the contract. This kind of saving should have been achievable without a reduction in service and certainly none was planned.
Phil Taylor ● 4998d